Older workers could soon find it easier to prove age discrimination. The House Education and Labor Committee voted on Tuesday to approve the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (POWADA).

The bill, which moves next to the full House and then the Senate, would reverse a 2009 Supreme Court decision, Gross v. FBL Financial Services, which required workers to prove that their age was the main factor in an employer’s decision to discipline, fire or not hire them.

@mhogan - T's using new tricks. Move jobs to hip and urban areas, kind of like places where people with kids do not want to work. There are multiple messages about it on this board, some are in this thread below. That's the easier way to unload 40+ folks without being accused of #agediscrimination - T is not the only company that's doing it tho... The move works like a charm.

It's a part of a bigger shift to hire younger folks with lower salary requirements.

Here is how the scam works (many companies are doing this):

Create a hub 'only' model

Put hubs in urban areas where nobody with a kids would want to live

Put hubs in areas with high student concentration (close to colleges)

Discontinue telecommuting

Wave old-timers goodbye - no severance as they quit on their own

Welcome new, fresh from college, hires

Watch new hires, grow old and leave on their own once they want to form a family

Voila! Mission accomplished...

Just go and please see what IBM, Bank of America, State Farm and others are doing right now - this is a massive trend in the Fortune 100 world and will be spreading to other areas of the economy too. It s---s but they did find a loophole to avoid being punished for #AgeDiscrimination, #H1B abuse, #NoTelecommuting, etc... So, in short - that was the plan to kill #Telecommuting

This is not my post but I thought it was relevant to us... Flagging it with #Gold

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It's a part of a bigger shift to hire younger folks with lower salary requirements.

Here is how the scam works (many companies are doing this):

Create a hub 'only' model

Put hubs in urban areas where nobody with a kids would want to live

Put hubs in areas with high student concentration (close to colleges)

Discontinue telecommuting

Wave old-timers goodbye - no severance as they quit on their own

Welcome new, fresh from college, hires

Watch new hires, grow old and leave on their own once they want to form a family

Voila! Mission accomplished...

Just go and see what IBM, Bank of America, State Farm and others are doing right now - this is a massive trend in the Fortune 100 world and will be spreading to other areas of the economy too. It s---s but they did find a loophole to avoid being punished for #AgeDiscrimination, #H1B abuse, #NoTelecommuting, etc... So, in short - that was the plan to kill #Telecommuting

It's a part of a bigger shift to hire younger folks with lower salary requirements.

Here is how the scam works (many companies are doing this):

Create a hub 'only' model

Put hubs in urban areas where nobody with a kids would want to live

Put hubs in areas with high student concentration (close to colleges)

Discontinue telecommuting

Wave old-timers goodbye - no severance as they quit on their own

Welcome new, fresh from college, hires

Watch new hires, grow old and leave on their own once they want to form a family

Voila! Mission

Just go and see what IBM, Bank of America, State Farm and others are doing right now - this is a massive trend in the Fortune 100 world and will be spreading to other areas of the economy too. It s---s but they did find a loophole to avoid being punished for #AgeDiscrimination, #H1B abuse, #NoTelecommuting, etc... So, in short - that was the plan to kill #Telecommuting

Why is majority of those laid off in their late forties or early fifties? It looks like #agediscrimination is out of control here and nobody is really either talking about it or trying to do anything about it.

If you are over 40, gather all the appropriate documentation and file a complaint with your state and EEOC. They will research and follow up with IBM and you. If you can afford to not sign the severance agreement, do not do so. The agreement has a clause where you waive your right to a class action law suit and there are several in the works.

The comment about straight white people days numbered. I think it's not so logical. US population is over 360 million, whites make up approximately 300 million. Lol it'll be a few hundred generations before anything changes. Reviewing national crime stats, blacks are 87% more likely to be murdured by a member of their own race. Dont get upset over a racist remark here, this is what happens when your great grandparents, grandparents, and parents teach you to be hateful to another race from a young age. Pathetic outcasts.

Also, about the #agediscrimination and lawsuits.....dont kid yourself. Most if not all associates at the snake will rat you out long before they offer you help. Reason snake farm is getting away with everything most associates are too coward to do the right thing and stand up for each other. Some are under the illusion by playing b--chboy to their managers, they can somehow get ahead. So either shut up and take it up the butt or be somebody and help bring an end to this behavior. PS. A recording device is your best friend at work. Please remove your head from your butt.

Human resources associates and/or managers, public relations associates and/or managers, employee relations associates and/or managers, loss mitigation associates and/or managers, etc. This is another form of phishing. By us giving bad experiences these henchmen and henchwomen will do what means necessary to pinpoint the above question issues and associates. You want help with #AgeDiscrimination or does your gut not tell you that what you feel is right? Let's put it this way, a legal precedent is applicable for a plethora of state farm basic human rights violations let alone our basic civil rights. There is information out there that shows without a reasonable doubt state farm commits federal law violations ie civil rights act age, race, etc. Why do you think the operation hubs are housed in two party consent states? It's part of the plot to weaken your civil rights. Also firing more tenured associates and mixing it in with younger associates is very realistic. Its state farms modus operandi. For the folks who are 40 plus years old shame on you for being born 40 plus years ago I guess is state farms age discrimination logic. Much like your skin color and/or ethnicity can be issues for claims managers and section managers and hr managers.

Think back to the industrial revolution and the amount of employees like you or I that were exposed to many work place hazards that by today's standards seem quite unrealistic. Why not start the future for employee rights with more mental health protection and more accountability for companies like state farm.

Talking of a #metoo movement for abusive companies ie expose the harvey weinstein violators by name and illegal action or actions that were caused. If federal law and government agencies wont protect us why not expose these domestic terrorists for what they are? Today's workplace equivalent is the mental anguish and/or mental harm brought about by state farm managers and the above mentioned state farm employees ie, #metoo, #depression, #agediscrimination, #industrialblacklisting, etc

We need to find a way to get these ideas into the mainstream and expose the truth about state farms federal law violations. We must make the future work place a safer place for us all.

The long-time rumblings about age discrimination at IBM have finally produced a lawsuit. A 60-year-old Texas man alleges in a suit filed May 25 that he was improperly laid off amid the company's push to hire millennials.

Jonathan Langley, a former salesman in IBM's Hybrid Cloud unit, alleges the company sent him packing after a 24-year career that consistently "met or exceeded" the company's performance expectations. He also claims the company lied to investigators from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the reasons for his dismissal.

The reality is if he had "been younger, and especially if he had been a Millennial, IBM would not have fired him," the federal lawsuit says.

Langley's Austin-based legal team filed the case just before the Memorial Day holiday, and in it highlighted a recent ProPublica/Mother Jones report that alleges the company is systematically pushing out its older workers, tilting its in-house evaluation and layoff process even against high performers. According to the report, IBM had “ousted an estimated 20,000 U.S. employees ages 40 and over since 2014, about 60 percent of its American job cuts during those years."

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Steve Groetzinger, a Triangle resident and former salesman for the company's Security Division, says he was one of those targeted. Groetzinger, now 66, was working on a sales proposal to North Carolina's state government when he was laid off in 2016.

"When I looked around at all the people who've been laid off recently, there was a pattern," Groetzinger said. "Everybody was over 50."

Groetzinger isn't inclined to join the litigation — "I'm over it, I'm retired and I'm doing fine," he said — but he points out that other layoff victims aren't as lucky.

Some are "people a little younger than me who still had houses to pay off or kids in college," he said. "To them, this is really bad."

IBM, which employs thousands at its corporate campus in Research Triangle Park, has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years, including one just before the Memorial Day holiday that targeted workers in its Watson Health project.

Company Chief Financial Officer Jim Kavanaugh earlier this spring told investment analysts the company had taken "about a $610 million [job] action" in the first quarter of 2018, and ducked questions about whether that was the end of "workforce rebalancing" for the year.

After layoffs, social-media postings in forums such as Facebook's "Watching IBM" group regularly feature complaints that the targets were in their 60s, 50s and even late 40s.

IBM says it has done nothing wrong. "IBM complies with all applicable laws, and we will defend this case vigorously," company spokesman Doug Shelton said, referring to Langley's lawsuit.

The situation has led to complaints to the EEOC, which appears to be taking an interest the matter. Pro Publica reported recently that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has launched a nationwide probe of age bias at IBM. It cited as its sources ex-employees who had spoken with investigators and people familiar with the agency’s actions, including a former general counsel for the EEOC. The EEOC does not comment on on-going investigations.

Litigation is the next frontier, but lawsuits are complicated by severance agreements that call for the use of arbitration to resolve age-discrimination claims.

Langley is suing IBM on his own, but the issue is serious enough that it could "potentially" spawn a class-action lawsuit against the company, said David Lopez, a former EEOC general counsel who's now with a San Francisco law firm, Outten & Golden, that specializes in employment law.

Nor is IBM the only tech-industry player that's under fire. Lopez and his firm are involved in a lawsuit that accuses a number of companies, Amazon among them, of using age-restricted employment ads on Facebook to exclude older workers.

"When you start peeling the onion, you start to see that age discrimination in the hiring process is pervasive," Lopez said.

Lopez is also representing a former IBM program manager from Georgia, Coretta Roddey, who suspects her "over 40" age has something to do with her inability to return to the company after stints elsewhere in the private sector.

Roddey said she left IBM on good terms and was deemed re-hireable. But subsequent interviews or recruiting contacts, including one with an IBM human-resources manager based in the Research Triangle Park, never turned into an offer. She's filed an EEOC complaint.

Federal watchdog investigates allegations by former Intel employees that they were let go because of their age

Intel said factors such as age weren’t part of the decision-making process for the layoffs.

Intel said factors such as age weren’t part of the decision-making process for the layoffs. PHOTO:

By Georgia Wells

May 25, 2018 12:05 p.m. ET

The federal watchdog for equal employment is investigating claims that Intel Corp. INTC 1.26% targeted workers for layoffs based on their age.

Nearly three years after the chip maker launched a series of layoffs that cut more than 10,000 employees globally, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Seattle office is working to determine whether the job cuts were discriminatory, according to a document from the agency reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The issue of potential age discrimination is recurrent in the tech industry, where the workforces at many firms skew younger and the pace of change is often rapid.

Following the Intel layoffs, dozens of former employees sought legal advice on whether they could sue, according to lawyers who received calls from the employees. Some of those former employees filed complaints with the EEOC, according to people familiar with the matter.

In one set of layoffs in May 2016, the median age of the 2,300 employees let go was 49 years old, seven years older than the median age of their peer employees who remained, according to Intel documents viewed by the Journal. Many of the layoffs in the U.S. occurred in Oregon, where Intel is one of the largest employers.

The company, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., said its layoffs were intended to “fuel Intel’s evolution” from a supplier to the PC industry to one whose processors power the cloud and connected devices.

“Factors such as age, race, national origin, gender, immigration status, or other personal demographics were not part of the process when we made those decisions,” a spokesman for Intel said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the EEOC said the agency isn’t permitted to confirm or deny the existence of investigations.

Layoffs of older workers, who tend to be better paid, happen in any variety of industries. But in recent years several tech firms have been sued for alleged age discrimination, and Pro Publica reported earlier this year that the EEOC is also looking into age-discrimination complaints at International Business Machines Corp. An IBM spokesman declined to comment.

Under federal employment law, people alleging age discrimination by their employers must first file complaints with the EEOC. The agency then investigates these complaints, and determines whether there is sufficient evidence to settle the matter privately, or help take the cases to court, sometimes as class-action suits.

“If someone files an individual charge, and it looks like it implicates broader, systemic issues, then the EEOC can expand the investigation to include the broader issue,” said David Lopez, a former general counsel for the EEOC who now is a partner at law firm Outten & Golden.

The document viewed by the Journal indicates the agency hasn’t yet determined whether to file a class-action suit against Intel.

If the EEOC doesn’t find sufficient evidence to file its own case, the agency issues a letter to those who filed charges that allows them to file civil cases.

Are we looking at another cleansing of those in their late forties and early fifties (with a few younger employees thrown in to avert suspicion, of course) or is there an actual chance that for once layoffs are actually going to get rid of employees who really are dead weight?

Come on folks! Age has nothing to do with it. If you’re particularly good at your job (and performing reach arounds), then your chances of being retained are exponentially greater.

That is so untrue I am not sure where to start. No matter how good you are, there is zero guarantee you will remain at your job. Those making the decisions have no idea about who you are and what you do. they deal with numbers. And if numbers say you earn twice, three times, or four times as much as somebody new would make in a similar position, you are gone. unfortunately, we live in a time where honestly earned pay through years with the company is a liability to keeping your job.

I spent 25 years there until the kicked me out for being old and making too much money -

The new generation of management is clueless. It used to be about the client, you know they people that bay the bills.

Now it's about the process even if it screws the client, as long as the process is followed. If you dare to bypass procedure even if it helps keep a client happy you will be in deep trouble and likely soon to be looking for a job.

This board is littered with stories about #AgeDiscrimination - see that hashtag and you will see that this spans industries, regions, etc...

Really, this is how the economy operates, out with the old, in with the young - repeat, recycle...

How hard is it truly to find a job in your fifties?

I was just wondering, how hard is it truly to find a job in your fifties? I'm not sure if my dad will be a part of the layoff, but if he is, I'm scared that finding a new job might be an issue for him.

He's been with the same company for decades, and he is not really the moving with the times, adjusting well to change kind of guy.

My dad just got laid off after decades with PepsiCo. He is only a few years away from retirement, so this hit him really hard, I could hear it in his voice. Broke my heart. How heartless do you have to be to do something like this? I truly hope this comes back to bite them in the a-- really soon.

I do not work for Humana but my company has a thriving board here - you may want to learn more about how rampant Age Discrimination is in corporate America. I am not saying it's happening at your company as I have no insight into the internal dynamics of the enterprise, however feel free to check out this hashtag ( #AgeDiscrimination ) and see how many companies have an issue with this...

We continue to cut here -10% by November. I hear each department is being asked to cut 10% of expenses. I'm also hearing the 70 rule. Add your age to your years of service. The closer it gets to 70 the more likely it is you will get caught up in the layoff.